relationship

The following two paragraphs is how I initially started this blog. At first I titled it “Walking” But after some time I realized that there was more to this “walking” than I first saw on my arrival in Kenya.

As Sean and I were making the ride of doom from Nairobi to Kitale I was struck by how many people were walking. One must understand this is not like people walking on sidewalks or even streets. The area I’m talking about is the road that takes 8 hours to drive between Nairobi and Kitale. I mean we are out in the middle of no where, on a highway that basically follows the rim on the Rift Valley. Kenyan’s walking everywhere, on foot paths that go everywhere.

There are foot paths along hillsides and mountains, or on miles of just flat land. What I am even more struck by is the groups of people just sitting under a tree or beside bushes that are along side the foot paths. They are of any age. What are the conversations? Where are they going? Where are they coming from?

After a few days in Kenya this observation on walking took on an even deeper meaning. Kenyan’s, and I would guess most of the other 3^rd world countries, walk out of economic necessity, they flat don’t have the money for cars or the fuel to put in them. OK…I get that! There are also the obvious benefits of exercise. But who needs exercise when food can be scarce. So when I’m thinking of this walking issue I kept getting “it’s about relationships” in my brain.

I thoroughly enjoyed walking around Kitale, Kolongolo and Mali Saba. I loved being with the people. I loved watching the way Daniel, Sean and Meredith interacted with the people and the people with them. I loved seeing joy and hope in peoples eyes. And yes it hurt to see the pain also. A friend asked me what I liked the best on my trip, and I said “it was being in town with people”.

I couldn’t greet the kids if I was driving, I couldn’t say hello to the adults if I was driving, I wouldn’t be available to the glue boys or the street girls if I was driving. I couldn’t touch people and they couldn’t touch me if I was driving.

That is how relationship can begin, just being with people, being available to them.

No trust can be gained, no love can be developed, no healing of a broken person, no intimacy can take place until there is a relationship. It is what we desire the most with Christ, isn’t it, that unbelievable feeling of relationship.

So what better way to being with people and starting a relationship than to just walk among them?